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Flashed wrong version of BIOS! How make it right?

Hi,

my friend bought a new HD 160 GB, and his computer doesn't recognize it. so i thought i should update the BIOS. His motherboard is an ASUS P4B266. I searched in google about BIOS update for this motherboard and landed on a site where there are a lot of BIOS updates, drivers and so on.

But then i mistook the BIOS update for Asus P2B and installed it on his comp. now his comp won't start at all. If i turn the comp on the screen stay blank without any letters or cursors and the motherboard doesn't beep at all.

What can i do so i can install the right BIOS on his computer or to install the previous version? (i made a backup before, but i can't flash this backup unless i can get the to the DOS prompt)

I tried to remove the bios battery for an hour, but it's still the same. I tried to look in the manual for the jumper to clear RTC RAM, but the jumper doesn't exist on his motherboard although the manual says that it should be there... (but i guess it's only for reseting the time and configuration, not the BIOS. right?)

Welcome to WD ThienZ.
Bummer that, but you can recover from this.
Ruslan, our resident MB/Bios specialist recommended this in another thread:

Originally Posted by Ruslan

I can help you to fix that board (if it just only corrupted BIOS chip - it shouldn't present a problem)...
First of all, take a closer look, may be BIOS is still alive (boot-block, at least), and trying to boot from floppy to re-flash BIOS back...
In this case you'll see nothing on screen (unless you're using an old ISA videocard instead of AGP card)... Keyboard and mouse are not accessible also, so, everything should be done in unattended mode... Make a bootable floppy using another PC (www.bootdisk.com may be helpful here), put awdflash and BIOS file on floppy and make appropriate autoexec.bat to flash BIOS automatically without pressing any key... You can find examples on bootdisk.com also...

Even if BIOS is completely dead, I still can re-program that chip for you as last resort... But you should be able to do it yourself...

Welcome to WD ThienZ.
Bummer that, but you can recover from this.
Ruslan, our resident MB/Bios specialist recommended this in another thread:
Also, check the "Bios Blunder" thread right under yours in this same forum for the link to "Bios Recovery Tips". Here it is:http://www.bev.me.uk/ruslan/Updated_...overy_tips.htm
Good luck

PS
If you are uncomfortable with all of this, you can still order a replacement chip.

thx TripleRltd for the nice welcome and fast reply

i read Ruslan's article, but have some questions here, hope you can help (it seems to be simple, but i'm really new in programming BIOS chips... )

You are welcome, and if you are going to try this, you can thank Ruslan, especially.
1> Yes, he means a different mb: a "test" bed to perform the procedure.
2> The Bios "chip" is the one in the first picture in the Tips article. Yours will have a label on it as well, such as "Award" or "AMI" or such.
Listen, I will PM Rus, but understand it is a weekend, and tell your friend that the board/BIOS is recoverable.

PS
The problem you originally had would have been the OS most likely not seeing the large hard drive, or do you mean the Bios did not recognize the drive? If that was the case, the Asustek site would have linked to a bios update which would have recognized the large drive and told you the new bios "flash" added support for them. Oh, well. XP sp1 added support for larger than 137 gig drives.

2> The Bios "chip" is the one in the first picture in the Tips article. Yours will have a label on it as well, such as "Award" or "AMI" or such.

PS
The problem you originally had would have been the OS most likely not seeing the large hard drive, or do you mean the Bios did not recognize the drive? If that was the case, the Asustek site would have linked to a bios update which would have recognized the large drive and told you the new bios "flash" added support for them. Oh, well. XP sp1 added support for larger than 137 gig drives.

thx again TripleRLtd for the fast reply,

in his mobo, he doesn't have anything with "award" label on it (his bios is award), but in the manual there is this text :

So i think it's the Bios chip? How can i remove it without breaking it..? I'm a little bit afraid that i'll break it if i use some power to pull it out... ^^;;;

The original problem was that the bios recognized the 160GB drive as a 8GB drive (LOL), and in windows (ME) it's not recognized at all (it doesn't show up in the drives list), but maybe it's because i didn't format it at first? (i usually format and used fdisk to make partition, i never use windows to make it )

Another question about hot swaping, i read another article in internet, that hot swaping requires Bios caching. If the caching is not activated, the computer tends to read to the Bios all the time, and if the chip is removed it is going to crash. How can i activate the Bios caching?

Guten Abend, ThienZ !
That's the BIOS chip, you're correct...
There is quite a few revisions of that board, http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/download.aspx
Make sure you have correct one...
By the way, the latest BIOS updates for ASUS boards (even beta-versions, not listed on official Taiwanese site) I usually I'm downloading for German ASUS ftp site... ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub
But today many of ASUS servers are not available for some reasons... may be maitenance os something else...
Regarding hot-swaps and your question regarding BIOS caching - it is good to have it enabled, but many of modern BIOSes have no such an option (BIOS caching) - probably it is already enabled by default... (BIOS shadowing (into RAM) does almost the same, just only RAM is slower)... But I've never actually used that option (at least, didn't pay attention at all), and everything was fine...
Another issue - you have BIOS chip in PLCC case, so, probably you'll need PLCC-to-DIP converter (mentioned in my topic) to re-flash it in another motherboard (most of older motherboards have DIP32-case BIOSes). It is possible to make hot-swap in PLCC socket, but it is much easier (and much safer) to do it in DIP socket...
It is 2 Mbit BIOS, so, it shouldn't be problem to find the motherboard with 2 Mbit BIOS to use as a host for hot-swap...
If you cannot do it yourself, don't give up, I can do it for you , but it will take time (and money)...
Good luck!

Regarding hot-swaps and your question regarding BIOS caching - it is good to have it enabled, but many of modern BIOSes have no such an option (BIOS caching) - probably it is already enabled by default... (BIOS shadowing (into RAM) does almost the same, just only RAM is slower)... But I've never actually used that option (at least, didn't pay attention at all), and everything was fine...
Another issue - you have BIOS chip in PLCC case, so, probably you'll need PLCC-to-DIP converter (mentioned in my topic) to re-flash it in another motherboard (most of older motherboards have DIP32-case BIOSes). It is possible to make hot-swap in PLCC socket, but it is much easier (and much safer) to do it in DIP socket...
If you cannot do it yourself, don't give up, I can do it for you , but it will take time (and money)...
Good luck!

Hi Ruslan,

thx for answering quickly
I would like to get your help actually, but i'm afraid the time wouldn't be enough for that. My friend is going back to Indonesia this Thursday and he's planning to take his comp with him. So i have to get this right before Wednesday ^^;;

I still have an old motherboard (5 years old) with BIOS type PLCC. I think i can use this one. And i've tried to take the chip out and i succeed. But is it safe to take the chip out and put the other chip in if the mobo on? (It wouldn't be funny if i get a shock for changing Bios chips ^^;; Or do i need this special converter or another tool for hot-swapping?

I still have an old motherboard (5 years old) with BIOS type PLCC. I think i can use this one. And i've tried to take the chip out and i succeed. But is it safe to take the chip out and put the other chip in if the mobo on? (It wouldn't be funny if i get a shock for changing Bios chips ^^;; Or do i need this special converter or another tool for hot-swapping?

Hot-swapping is always presenting some risk, especially with PLCC chips...
I believe hot-swap is safe itself (because chip is connected to rest of the components though the buffer IC, built in chipset) - at least it always been with all PCs back to years when MB was assembled from many-many separate chips...
But there is risk what you can short some pins in the BIOS socket, if you're using screw driver or something else made from current-conductive material... That's why I use ZIF socket for hot-swapping... Don't worry about getting shocked - operating voltage is low (3-5v)...
What chip type you have in that motherboard (numbers under sticker)?
What kind of motherboard is it, by the way? What model? What the BIOS chip size? Please answer ASAP...

But there is risk what you can short some pins in the BIOS socket, if you're using screw driver or something else made from current-conductive material... That's why I use ZIF socket for hot-swapping... Don't worry about getting shocked - operating voltage is low (3-5v)...

Hi Ruslan, it's fixed now, thx for all the help.

I was yesterday already at an electronic store, where you can reprogram your PLCC chip i just found such a store

I was impatient two days ago for your answer and my friend insisted me that we have to fix it soon as possible. We couldn't find a tooth pick and then we took a small screw driver with a plastic end (so i wouldn't be shocked )

At the first time we took the chip out and in, the system hanged. And then I turn the Bios caching on and tried to pull it out again. But as i put the other chip in, there was a slight smoke from my mobo, just beside the processor, and it was shut down. The next time we wanted to turn it on again, it ddin't respond at all, just the fan from the power supply is rotating... ^^;;;;

Why did this happen as i put in the chip, not as i pull out the chip with the metal screw driver?

You probably inserted that chip in backwards - that's one explanation ... or may be chip had different type (and thus, pinouts) from original chip... you didn't say what types those chips were - so I couldn't warn you
Once I inserted chip in backwards and fried that chip (but I had spare one made beforehand )... I have flashed many hundreds of chips and have never fried any motherboard... In your case probably one of MOSFETs (powerful transistors) blown, take a closer look - and you probably will see which one...

Could you help me with with recovering bios.
I had ECS N2U-400A ver.2.0 motherboard, by mistake I have flashed bios from ECS N2U-400A ver.2.0U.
After that system doesn't start, no sign of reading floppy, nothing. The flash chip is PMC Flash PM49FL002T-33JC.
It was soldered, but I have friends and they unsoldered it for me. I was going to flash it on ABIT NF7-S. It has similar flash
PMC Flash PM49FL004T-33JC. I guess the difference is 2 and 4 Mb flash size.
I have tried hotswapping with: Awardflash(one of the last version), Amiflash, ECSflash, Uniflash. But none of them helped me. I remember that only uniflash have shown right flash type but than it said that it can't read from floppy or something like this.
And even more, when I was preparing for recovering Bios, I have made floppy with autoexec and flasher and left it on one of PC at my job. Of course aftr restart the bios was flashed with the bios for different motherboard. I have extracted this chip as well and it is Winbond W29C020P-90.
I have tried to recover it as well(motherboard is socket7 AI5VG1) but with no luck.
What are you suggestions?
I have read somewhere that uniflash does not work correctly on a most of Abit motherboards. May be it is the reason of such strange behavior with reading bin file.

I don't know did you manage to screw up BIOS chip with hardware-protected boot-block... That chip is known as Firmware HUB and designed to be protected against erasing boot-block (that's why that chip was soldered into motherboard and not inserted into socket). If boot block is still alive, you should be able to boot from floppy... http://www.endrich.com/news_sept03.html
As it is said in the manual to those chips http://www.pmcflash.com/resource_cen...20V1%2E4%2Epdf
they have different size and organization of the boot-block and can be not compatible...
It is pretty new chip, that's why not so many flash utilities can recognize them correctly... Personally I prefer AMIflash 8.64 (*for non-ASUS MBs) or Aflash (*for ASUS MBs)... Although uniflash can recognize and read data from many chips, it cannot re-flash chip if chip is not completely compatible with MB chipset... same for another utils...

Now about your another problem... Winbond W29C020P-90 chip (2 Mbit 5V flash chip) have no hardware boot-block and is not protected from erasing... http://www.winbond.com.tw/E-WINBONDH....asp?Pname=337
That chip can be easily enough reprogrammed back by using mentioned in my topic methods (I use the same chips for re-flashing and testing, by the way). That chip have no any protection and compatible with most of motherboards using regular 2Mbit 5v flash chips (with boot-block or without).

I didn't use ABIT boards as hosts for reflashing... Cannot say much... I can only say for sure what your ABIT board model is having Firmware HUB as BIOS which is not compatible with regular BIOS chips...

Thanks Ruslan.
It does not sound very promising to me.
It looks like I can not reflash both of them on my motherboard.
The friends who unsoldered flash for me have programmator but unfortunately it does not have right soket on it. On your web page I saw that you have adaptor. Is it hand made, or something standart? If it is standart how much does it cost?
I saw as well thet you were going to reflash some chips for a person who started this post. How much it will cost?

Yes, not every motherboard (especially new ones) can do it...
My adapters have 1:1 pinouts with PLCC32... as you can see on the pictures in my topic, they are soldered manually, but on factory-made (by my order) printed boards... Cost 6 USD plus shipping... Actually, you can find the same adapter sold as an additional adapter for programmers... I actually can reflash your Winbond chip, but not sure about PM49LF002 chip - it is 3,3V chip and so, it can be big problem for me...